Maybe it's time to do this

[torquill]

Does anyone know a way -- or ways -- that I might begin tracking down the name, if not current location, of a man who rented the house next door to ours around 1981? He lived there with another adult male, and moved out a year or two later. I don't know his name, or the name of the person who owned the house. The best ideas I have are vague and involve combing county records, starting with the address.

Please do pass this post around to anyone you know who might be able to help; I know that about half the people on my Friends list don't read me regularly, so even if they're listed as a friend on my account, they may not see this.

Yes, it is important to me. No, I'm not going to say why I need to know. But it is not trivial.

Comments

[redrob.livejournal.com]

My only thought is to track down the owner (which should be possible via tax records - you'd probably need to go to the county recorder's office), and hope they have records of renters that old. You may need to get a friendly lawyer or realtor to get them for you, or you may be able to get them yourself; they are public records, but I don't know how many hoops you'd have to jump through to get it.

The only other avenue I can think of would be to get utilities billing records (PG&E, PacBell, water, garbage, etc). For that you definitely need a friend on the inside, as those are NOT public records.

Finally, you can just google the address, and hope you get lucky that there's a public record somewhere with that address and the name from the appropriate period (such as a court proceeding, or something like that.

None of these are that sure a thing. Sorry.

Alex

[catnip13.livejournal.com]

Check Zillow.com. You can find out when the house was last sold there.

[luna-torquill.livejournal.com]

That's a good thought, assuming it's accurate... and assuming that the house hasn't been sold again since then.

[catnip13.livejournal.com]

I took a look. According to the info they have, the houses to either side of yours have sold since 1981. The one to the west sold in 1983, and the one to the east sold in 2004 and 2006. So whoever owns it now would not have owned it in 1981.

[luna-torquill.livejournal.com]

It's trickier than that -- we have five neighbors. One to the south, and four to the east/west. I suspect you were looking at the houses by the street, while this one is in the back.

I'll check the address and have a look myself. But thanks for looking that up...